scary visions of shapes before bed

[Diggon]

Hi hi. I have been tormented by strange visions of boxes when trying to fall asleep for my whole life and it's kinda odd... I'm curious if anyone else can relate.

My earliest memory of this happened when I was a little kid trying to fall asleep, but was rudely interrupted by an odd vision. I unwillingly imagined a scrolling grid of floating boxes with numbers in them. I wasn't able to stop imagining the boxes and it felt very overwhelming/ claustrophobic.

(it felt like this gif:
)

And then, the most recent time I experienced this was a couple of days ago. When trying to drift off to sleep, I was bombarded by this idea of boxes enclosed in boxes enclosed in boxes enclosed in boxes... And it was just as overwhelming and claustrophobic. I couldn't stop thinking about these boxes and I felt like I wasn't in control of my mind. 

My working theory on why this happens:

I wonder if it’s like... just a horrific extension of how I already think while I’m falling asleep. Cus normally it’s like... Random shapes that go in all sorts of random ways (like a line turns into a truck, turns into a balloon, etc). I used to try and control them and manifest specific things (like sheep) but that would always make me overwhelmed and frustrated because I really had no control over the shapes in my head.
I wonder if the only difference is that the shapes aren’t soothingly random anymore and instead manifest into horrifyingly endless, repeating patterns.

Anyways... lmk what you guys think 

[grubbyfox]

Do you have any inner-ear issues? Like ear drum, pressure etc?

Because what you explains sounds similar to something I would have when I was a child and I would have high fevers. Firstly, yes I would get crazy fever dreams/hallucinations - but those would wear off. And those would always be very random.
However, when I was sick (and still when I am as an adult) - my ears get messed up. Like the anatomy in my ears is messed up by default, and it gets even worse when I'm sick.

I remember being "haunted" by round shapes as a child when my ears were messed up. Like, I would see these big stone wheels, kinda like cogs? Just huge stone wheels going back and forth in front of me, and there was this specific noise as well, like they were rolling on gravel. And it was relentless, like it would not give up until my ears were better - and I would have it many times. It was like something was manifesting in my brain?? Idk it's hard to explain and I was so young back then I had no idea.

Does this happened every night, btw? Like, literally every time you go to bed, or something that happens only sometimes, but for years?

Do you "see" them when you close your eyes or are your eyes open? Either way, have you had your vision checked?

[urgellx]

Hello !

I don't think that having those kind of visions while going to sleep, while being in a low-light environment or when closing your eyes is
that rare and from what you're telling us, they seem to be relatively tame, just being disturbing and not causing you any pain. I can relate
since i see a lot of different things and a lot of repeating things while going to sleep or even in every-day life but when going to
sleep, it just adds one hour or so before you end up falling asleep most of the time. Patterns that are not that colorful aren't even that
annoying to the eye so they're not that disturbing. I don't know what it's like in your country but in mine, you could try to understand how
to approach properly those recurrent visions by consulting a psychiatrist if you have healthcare, otherwise it would be a money sink that
may not even get you results during the first year.

Maybe it's overkill for such a average problem but at least taking one rendez-vous to see if there's something a bit deeper may be good.
Would have been nice to have started getting psychological care earlier when i only had those symptoms !

Hope you have a good day nyan-cat.

EDIT : Lots of spelling errors, my bad

[Melooon]

I had a similar experience, although it was much more common when I was younger, now it mostly happens if I'm sick!

I start imagining rice; usually, it's falling through one of those random chance games like this one.

At first, I'll imagine one grain of rice falling through it and imagining each permutation of physics as it falls. Soon though it becomes two grains, then three, then 10, then 50, then a million.

When it first happened I think my mind tried to simulate the physics of every individual grain of rice until it no longer could process any more and I broke out into a fever and just a general terror at the size and complexity of things. Also, that first time it happened, when I sat up there was a random dog at the foot of my bed staring at me; apparently, it was our neighbour's, but he'd never been in the house before and he never came in again. I wonder what about that moment summoned that dog and if it had anything to do with my experience

Anyway, as I've gotten older my brain has gotten better at abstracting; instead of trying to simulate every grain of rice, now it knows to abstract them into one mass that's pretty easy to imagine. Sometimes though that seems like a loss. I liked the clarity and honesty of not knowing my rice imagining limits, so sometimes I try to imagine lots of rice anyway 

[TheFrugalGamer]

I remember being "haunted" by round shapes as a child when my ears were messed up. Like, I would see these big stone wheels, kinda like cogs? Just huge stone wheels going back and forth in front of me, and there was this specific noise as well, like they were rolling on gravel.

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I had nearly this EXACT same hallucination as a child, and like yours, it was also caused by fever! The main difference was that I was usually being chased by the wheels rather than watching them, and the entire room was red.

Another particular feeling, which is usually exacerbated by fever but not always caused by it, is the feeling that I am shrinking while the rest of the room grows larger. It's a bit like the "spinning room" feeling that others described, but slightly different.

@Diggon I'm hesitant to offer any names for what you might be experiencing because I am not a medical professional, but it reminds me a little of the things the mind does when you have compulsive thoughts. A psychiatrist could probably nail it down more, though I know not everyone has access to good mental health care. I hope you have not lost too much sleep over it and that it gets better!

[Diggon]

I appreciate everybody sharing their experiences!!! While my issues with being tormented by boxes have been painful and consistent throughout my whole life, they are also relatively infrequent...
so that's nice! <3
 
I don't really think I have ear issues or fevers or anything, but also, I'm not too sure... and I guess I'm fine with not knowing for certain what exactly is causing it. I just sorta thought it was a mysterious mental phenomenon that I don't hear many ppl talking about anywhere, and from you guys' responses, It seems like it might be a little more common than I imagined!

here's an anonymous experience from an anonymous friend that will remain anonymous......

for me ive always gotten like giant box orangish kinda plane with like spiky floor that would rapidly shrink very tiny and then rapidly grow very large over and over again

[mittens]

i never had boxes but ive been tormented by spheres constantly spinning in a circle or going through some sort of weird machine. im not sure why theyre so unsettling to be honest, but once theyre in my head i cant stop imagining them TT

[grubbyfox]

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I had nearly this EXACT same hallucination as a child, and like yours, it was also caused by fever! The main difference was that I was usually being chased by the wheels rather than watching them, and the entire room was red.

Another particular feeling, which is usually exacerbated by fever but not always caused by it, is the feeling that I am shrinking while the rest of the room grows larger. It's a bit like the "spinning room" feeling that others described, but slightly different.

@Diggon I'm hesitant to offer any names for what you might be experiencing because I am not a medical professional, but it reminds me a little of the things the mind does when you have compulsive thoughts. A psychiatrist could probably nail it down more, though I know not everyone has access to good mental health care. I hope you have not lost too much sleep over it and that it gets better!

LMAO whyyy are we being haunted by wheels lol! XD

But yeah, it's bizarre!


I do think that, for people who experience the invasive "visions" before bed (assuming you're all seeing it like within your mind, not actually like in the room) that it's a mix between a slight compulsive thought and maybe overstimulation throughout the day or at the end of the day? I'm in no way a medical expert, but I know that when I've been way wayyy overstimulated at work (for example when I had these brutal as hell work shifts as a dish washer) as soon as I went to bed, I would have these non stopping visions/invasions in my head of being back at the work place, just endlessly washing dishes. It wasn't a dream, I was still wide awake, but as soon as I closed my eyes, all I saw was like my hands doing dishes compulsively.

Maybe it's a similar thing to that?

[bingus_baby]

Bumping this thread because I’ve been experiencing it lately… The past week or so sleep went from my favorite part of the day to the worst! My situation is a bit more odd tho. I have these compulsive visions but not of shapes, but situations. Last night was a very weird and specific one… I was checking customers out at a store and whenever they ordered an item it would ring up as usual, but when they ordered more than one, I would get incredibly nauseated and overwhelmed and have to sit up in bed!! I couldn’t sleep for hours!!! And in situations like this I’m usually so sleepy I can’t think critically and end up in a cycle of “vision, lay down, get sick” and it repeats.

I’ve had weird “pre-dream visions” like this since I was a kid. And they are always the following - mundane, distressing, and nauseating. They’re never anything scary, but they always bother me for some reason. And I can never control them which sucks. I don’t think I’ll be researching it deeply because I’d rather not find out it’s grounds for a trip to the doctors ;_; My semester is busy enough already.

[Plasmon]

During periods of extremely high stress, I have hypnopompic—I think that's how it's spelled—hallucinations, where I would hear voices as I wake up; sometimes I see undecipherable text soon after I wake up and before I turn on any lights. Brains are weird.

[BartTheZech]

Huh, I had something similar when I was younger. I don't really remember it happening any time recently though. It would always starts as a really cool pattern or shape thats moving through like it's some weird illusionist's light show but eventually I would be forced to open my eyes as it would get overbearing for me. I remember pushing it to see how far I'd go before I had to stop lol.

Interesting seeing a lot of people here also mention it being a childhood thing, wonder if there's a name for this. You know, on this same topic I had much more vivid and interesting dreams as a kid, kind of miss having them. My dreams got really wacky because often as a kid I'd have this imaginary story that I'd continue in my mind every time I go to bed and often the story would continue in the dream and I'd just go off from there.

[Misanthropic Monster™]

Reading this thread is really comforting - I have a weird relationship with sleep because I have really bad anxiety and a phobia of going unconscious (which includes falling asleep) so unless I genuinely sleepy I can't stand going to bed for fear of 'feeling' myself drifting off. I've been afflicted with sleep paralysis since I was 15 also so that hasn't helped.

I definitely get weird auditory and visual hallucinations when I am falling asleep though, and when I am waking up sometimes - one recurring hallucination is something I call Scribble Camera. Imagine a tiny ball of constantly moving scribbles in the air, but in the centre of that ball is what looks like an aperture, either a jumping spiders eye or a camera lens, something like that... and I get the sense that, despite how erratic Scribble Camera is whizzing around the room, it's always looking at me and perceiving me somehow. I get a strong sense of awareness from it, and I feel totally unsettled... but after a minute or two it sort of dissolves away into the background of reality and it's like it was never there. I see that a few times a month - been happening since I was a kid.

I also see weird shapes both when falling asleep and waking up... mostly inexplicable non-Euclidian looking shapes that make little sense to my fully awake mind. It's like I am observing impossible geometry somehow, and it seems to make sense whilst I am in the state of hallucinating but then when I wake up I can't re-imagine them properly because the shapes seem to be outside of my frame of reference in reality.

The brain is a very bizarre thing... what disturbs me to consider sometimes is that what we think reality looks like, is simply simulated through the grey sponge in our skull - it literally filters reality as it's captured through our optical organs... and then we basically simulate it via our perception. We'll never truly experience raw reality, objectively, because we're trapped in our own brains.